Maddie Bloom

"Maddie's always moving. She's flying down the aisles."

The Speaker starts the song describing an angelic beauty. She's always at work-seemingly in relationships- to which she finally ties the knot and moves her way to marriage.

"Got both hands in her pockets, trying to keep the balance mild."

This is a major theme of the work. Maddie's stride with her hands in her pockets presents a colloquial and rudimentary presence of her walking forward. Her gait is that of the song's very rhythm, each downbeat she seems to glide forward in a weightless fashion.

"Her motions like a movie, slicing constant air The wires are electrifying her phosphorescent hair."

The speaker now describes the perfection of his beloved; he compares her exact actions to a motion picture and that she seems to slice through there air, uninhibited by slowing forces, and then gives insight as to her radiant blonde hair. Now the reader can understand the conflict within the story and thus the weight and/or trouble to come(he likes her, but she's married!)

"I have seen the hunger, soaking through your shirt Sunken eyes found alive but smashed under the dirt."

"Hunger" is better understood here as lust. The Speaker has acknowledged her lust for him -covered poorly by a cloth that soaks through- and he understands her despondency for her marriage(her bored eyes are found alive when she see's him), but it cannot be, so it is buried under dirt in a careless fashion, left and forgotten. the harmonica displays a beautiful rendition of human weeping

Buried is the perfect word for the rest of the song. Buried meaning put to rest underground, as you would bury your loved ones, and buried as placing a seed underground to grow. The diction itself is paradoxical -meaning a place for death and a starting point for life- creating tension and a foreshadowing of the Speaker's two final outcomes.

"So lord give her one more set of hands... For those dulling rings that I can barely stand. I hope when I leave, she leaves them buried here, and they don't grow into the air."

The Speaker finally pleads to a deity for her to be without the rings on her hands. He asks for her to get a new set of hands so she can live a fresh life without restraints of her lost marriage. He then wishes for her to leave her rings buried in their hometown and leave town with him, but he mentions that they won't grow into the air, defining the certain type of burial (the kind where he wishes her marriage dead). The destination is unclear but the Speaker must make some kind of exoteric journey before returning home.

"Sing of soaking through me, on a kitchen chair. Sing of all the savage tiny bites that blossomed tears. The glass is always glowing, theres vacancy out there, but don't you ride out very far; you'll end up everywhere... So slow Speed erodes The weight of bother on your body will fall down like snow."

The Speaker now away from his beloved feels uneasy.He rides far and wide and understands that he's losing himself in the vast world; he looks outside and it's emptiness. He slows himself down and realizes his alleviation rests with Maddie Bloom. all instrumental parts present a more corpulent determined stride

"Lord take this telephone in hand. Its lost the ring that I once couldn't stand."

Maddie has lost the ring that held them apart, and the Speaker is hoping for her to call him now that he's back. It is obvious that the speaker has found himself back in the same place as before-striving for her affection- and he is now ready to cut ties altogether.

I hope when I leave, I leave it buried here... And it don't grow into the air. And it don't grow into the air…

The Speaker is leaving once more, and he will leave the relationship buried behind; but he mentions he isn't leaving it to grow. He is leaving the relationship buried- the kind where it doesn't grow back up. He says this in an almost liberating fashion, as if he is releasing himself from a woman that is not worth all his time, yet he is still stricken with sadness from the inability to cultivate a relationship with such an angelic graceful woman. *the harmonica plays an elegy to lost love, paralleled with the weeping from the speaker over this woman that seemed to slip through his fingers. The fiddle plays a more somber slow melody that ends all cries in a whimper.

Beautiful song, cant find a clear meaning yet.